Marie-Helene Bertino - Safe as Houses

They don’t answer.

I list other things I like.

…

Every week I assist Sister Charlene at Sunday school. My job is to walk the kids to recess and church, administer their snacks, generally make their stay comfortable.

Charlene runs her class like she is half clairvoyant, half yoga instructor. “I’m wondering why I hear talking toward the back of the carpet.” She holds her hands out like a sleepwalker. “I’m picturing a class that is ready for snack time.”

Order is maintained by a giant construction-paper “stoplight” on the front board composed of a green, yellow, and red face. The green face holds a wide smile, the yellow face a constipated wince, the red a murderous frown. Every kid has a clothespin with their name on it, which begins every day clipped on green. If the kid misbehaves, their clothespin moves to yellow and the kid can’t participate in snack time. If the kid does anything mortal like strangle the goldfish, they move to red, although, Sister Charlene informs me, no kid has ever moved to red.

“Most stay on green the whole day.” She beams.

If everyone stays on green all day, it’s a gold-sticker day.

Sister Charlene passes a bookmark to each kid, facedown. She counts to three. On three, they flip them over. Whoever has the rainbow sticker gets to feed the goldfish. The kids seem jazzed about this possibility. Rachel, a girl who constantly touches her nose as if confirming it is still there, wins. She tosses flakes into the aquarium under the reverent gazes of her classmates.

A kid near me starts to cry. It’s the frog with the bowl haircut.

“I never get the rainbow sticker,” he says. He seems to have an ongoing argument with the letter r . I nevell get the rainbow stickell .

“Christopher,” Sister Charlene warns.

“It’s just a sticker,” I say. “Two ninety-five for a pack of ten.” Then I realize he probably doesn’t have money.

“But I want to feed the goldfish!”

“It’s just a goldfish,” I say. “Do you want an apple?”

He does not want an apple and won’t calm down. In his distress, he accidentally backhands a little boy named Sergio.

Sister Charlene moves Christopher’s clothespin to the yellow face. “You are on yellow. No snack.”

Christopher stumbles forward and back. He screams, “Yellow!” and “Why?”

Sister Charlene looks away. “No elephant tears.”

I want to explain to him that yellow is just an idea, an arbitrary way of maintaining order. At my job they would give us written warnings. In the comments section, they would write “belligerent with clients” or “sleeping at desk.” It’s the same thing. Belligerence is a matter of opinion anyway. I got that warning after my work revamping the Trix slogan. They had Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids for something like thirty years and asked for something fresh. I made up storyboards and posters for what I thought was a brilliant new direction: Stupid fucking rabbit, not everything’s about you .

…

Sister Helena and I work in the garden. She informs me what each plant needs and I inform her when a bee is near her by saying, “Bee.” She arranges the trumpet of a lily. “I think nature has within it the cures to all human illness.”

“I’m curious how you know that.”

“It’s a theory, Ruby. It’s my own.”

I am disappointed. “I thought you had some inside info.” Then I say, “Bee.”

She lets it land on her arm. “He’s part of the group.”

“Let’s see after your head swells to the size of a hot-air balloon.”

I tell the tomato plants about the rainbow sticker. I tell them I’ve begun to differentiate the nuns. I tell them who my favorites are. In order: Sister Helena, Sister Charlene, Sister Mary. My least favorite nun is fat Sister Georgia .

Fat Sister Georgia scares the creamy lord out of me. She is a rotund woman who takes up two chairs in the dining hall. When you smile at Sister Georgia she does not smile back. Her green eyes are unamused always, and she does not think I am funny, which bothers me. She arrived at the convent years ago with a letter from her parish in Germany and a small valise Sister Helena said smelled like bacon. Her sound is a clipped, disapproving tsk . She sits in the dining hall surveying those around her with the unimpressed look of a gymnastics coach. The other sisters regard her with respectful fear. The occasion of her waddling by is a five-minute holiday in the courtyard. The sisters pause their trowels, mark their pages, scuttle out of her way. Their eyes follow her sadly, as if she were a specter or a town crazy.

“Please stop calling me at work,” Clive says.

I hang up the phone.

…

I walk the Sunday school kids to recess, single file, index fingers poised over their lips.

“You are a line of quiet ducklings,” I remind them.

Christopher breaks rank and walks next to me, body completely out of his control, like he is shaking something off every limb. He talks. To himself, to others, to Jesus, to the goldfish. He is never not talking. He is already on yellow for interrupting morning prayer with his thoughts on robots.

“Where do butterflies sleep?” He swings his arms.

“In the forest,” I say. “Back in line.”

“I’ve been to the forest,” he says. “And I’ve never seen a butterfly sleeping.”

“Then they sleep in chimneys,” I say. “Back in line.”

“Your face is weird.”

“You have an outdated haircut.”

“What’s an outdated—”

“Back in line.”

We reach the yard and pray. Sunday school is an orgy of praying. Amen, and the ducklings scatter.

Minutes later Tyler is screaming. He has not been offered the opportunity to turn the jump rope and has decided to become a lunatic bitch about it.

“Francine’s had five turns already!” he yells.

Francine is a little girl who looks like she could get you a job somewhere great. She holds her end of the jump rope in an elegant hand.

“What can I do to fix this?” I say.

“Tell her to give me a turn!”

“Francine, give Tyler a turn jumping rope!”

She shrugs, drops the handle.

Tyler bounds off, the pain of the previous five minutes gone. All he wants is the jump rope, and once he gets it he is fine. He does not wonder if it is something in him that makes Francine think he is undeserving of the jump rope. There is no long-standing rift. The needs of kids are simple. They want a turn jumping rope. They don’t want anyone to call them ugly. They don’t want their snot on them; they don’t want anyone else’s snot on them. Devoid of sarcasm, they are quivering, earnest-eyed balls of sincerity. When Tyler rejoins the game, he and Francine hug.

After fifteen minutes, I line them up.

“Let’s blow this pop stand,” I say.

Francine raises her hand. “We pray now.”

Once in a while, I smell Clive on my skin and it stops my day. It’s a train crossing; I wait to pass. Eventually the lights stop flashing, the barriers lift. I keep moving.

“Amen,” I say.

“Amen,” say the ducklings.

Bookmarks are on each desk when we return. Whoever gets the rainbow sticker hands out the singing books. This time it’s goody-goody Francine. Christopher supports his sad face on his fists.

“Stupid sticker,” he says.

“Christopher,” Sister Charlene warns.

A moment passes. The goldfish snaps at a flake of food.

“Stupid singing,” says Christopher.

Sister Charlene says, “Principal’s office.”

I escort him. We sit in folding chairs.

His voice is sober, finite. “I’m unlucky.”

I say, “You just need to learn how to zip it.”